The U.S. Senate Finance Committee voted to send a health care “reform” bill to the full Senate by a 14-9 vote October 13. President Obama said the vote was a “critical milestone,” but admitted that he was not assured of the bill's passage. "Now is not the time to pat ourselves on the back," Obama said, urging supporters to "dig in and work even harder to get this done."

The legislation would mandate that most employers offer health insurance for their employees, exempting only a few small businesses, and it would create nominally private “Health Insurance Exchanges” that would be heavily regulated by the federal government. The federal government would ban insurance companies from denying coverage as a result of pre-existing conditions, which independent auditors hired by the insurance industry estimate would skyrocket insurance costs on the average American family. “This analysis shows that the cost of the average family coverage is approximately $12,300 today and could be expected to increase to approximately … $21,900 in 2019 under current law and to $25,900 if these provisions are implemented,”  the PriceWaterhouseCoopers analysis estimated. That's a $4,800 additional increase per family over current law.

The Baucus bill would punish individuals who don't purchase insurance under a federal law by up to $750 per year by 2019, though illegal aliens would be exempt from the regulation.  A press release by the Senate Finance Committee calls it a “a personal responsibility requirement for health care coverage, with exceptions provided for religious conscience (as defined in Medicare) and undocumented individuals.” The phrase "undocumented individuals" refers to illegal aliens. The penalty for citizens and legal aliens phases in over a four-year period beginning at $200 in 2014 and rising to $750 in 2017.

The bill would do little to trim the out-of-control federal deficit, as the $829 billion price tag would be covered by huge tax increases and some Medicare reform cost controls. The goal as set by President Obama was to make the healthcare program deficit neutral and use "savings" from Medicare reform that is periodically needed as justification for the additional spending. Even the New York Times admits that “The bill is projected to cost $829 billion over the 10 years, which would be fully offset by new tax and fees, including a tax on high-cost insurance policies, as well as by savings from slowing the growth in Medicare spending by the government.”

Although the bill, sponsored by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Montana), could be called bipartisan with the support of Maine liberal Republican Olympia Snowe, her vote was far from assured on final passage. “My vote today is my vote today,” Senator Snowe cryptically told the press after the vote. “It doesn’t forecast what my vote will be tomorrow.”

Even the social-economic coalition President Obama is trying to build to pass healthcare legislation appears to be eroding. Last week the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops published a letter that appeared to urge Catholics to oppose the legislation in its present state because of its support of abortion. The October 8 letter noted that “we remain apprehensive when amendments protecting freedom of conscience and ensuring no taxpayer money for abortion are defeated in committee votes.” The U.S. Catholic Bishops have long been economic leftists, but most are social conservatives, and they represent the largest church in the nation. Some 25 percent of Americans claim to be Catholic, so a strong direction by Catholic bishops against a healthcare plan could kill just about any deal.

Photo of Sen. Max Baucus: AP Images

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PaulC1958 said:

Our Future if Amnesty is Passed If the Catholic Church has as much political clot today as the author claims, imagine what clot it will have if Amnesty is passed and the open borders policy of today is expanded. The Census Bureau project another 132 million people in the country by 2050 and 80% of those will come from Mexico and Latin countries. I say all the time to my liberal/progressive friends to careful of what they wish for because they will get that and a whole lot of what they didn't wish for. The Pope will be calling the shots in US politics by the turn of the century.

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October 14, 2009
Votes: +3

Thomas Paine said:

	Go ahead break the bank! Our dollar is close to collapsing and the criminals in congress want to push it over the edge by passing the infinitely expensive health care bill. The NWO bankers are very pleased with their children in the Senate. They have saved them a spot in the new Parlament once our dollar and constitution are ripped up.
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October 14, 2009
Votes: +4

Brittanicus said:

No Amnesty for illegal aliens and only emergency care INSTEAD OF JUST A CIVIL INFRACTION, ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTION SHOULD BE PENALISED AS A FELONY? THAT'S WHY THEY KEEP ON COMING? We should demand of those who represent us that E-Verify should be implemented immediately as mandatory, with no exemptions. Everybody in the workplace Must be verified. No more voluntary E-Verify? Every police department should be trained to apprehend and question any individual they see fit to check? No more of this Liberal Socialist political correctness garbage on racial profiling? We should have a federal force to audit I-9's, with the defiant ones going to prison. ICE should have larger funding with more interior and border agents, to sweep down on illegal business activities. Identify for yourself those politicians who are involved in corruption at JUDICIAL WATCH site. Our nation is silently being dismantled by the globalists and those who wave the banner for them. Don't let sympathy cloud your mind to our own countries deterioration, the infrastructure and uncorrectable overpopulation. Each year our State and federal taxes go ever higher, to pay for the illegal immigrants, their emergency care, education, their extended circle of relatives that enter under family reunification. THE TAXPAYER HAS BECOME THE BREADWINNERS ILLEGAL ALIENS IN THIS COUNTRY AND THE WORLD. IT MUST STOP!

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October 14, 2009
Votes: +1

Brittanicus said:

... The driving force now behind this contradiction to his oath of Allegiance to American people is Rep.Luis Gutierrez's of Illinois, whose immigration enforcement since being in office is a (F-) grading according to NUMBERSUSA. The American Workers—MUST-- condemn this Immigration reform action by complaining to their indifferent Liberal Democrats and some Republicans at 202-224-3121. Don't let the aides reject you offhand as you want your representative to know? Currently 15 million US workers with the most sitting at home, sending out references, walking the streets and looking for work. Then this joker Luis Gutierrez is pushing for a second Amnesty? What are these politicians thinking, or do they think at all? My hope the taxpayers show him the door—ALL OF THEM--when he/she wants to be re-elected. Gutierrez is just one of many who have blemished their own records of their loyalty to the American people? I just know that the last AMNESTY was an absolute failure, owing to the fraud that transpired. I think the majority of the US population knows that the majority of our politicians in every administration had no true intentions of ever securing the border, or enforcing any immigration law. This has been proven over and over again, with Senators like Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Diane Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi, Janet Napolitano that have all genuflected to the demands of businesses big and small. It seems for decades that it’s been mandatory that we must support the world’s poor? The evidence has irrefutable shown that their disregard for US labor in Obama's stimulus bill, the potential health care reform and whatever deviant law, they place in the Senate and House to support the illegal immigrants and families once they break into America? WE welcome a millions or more legal immigrants each year? Even police departments are reprimanded as Arizona Sheriff Joe Araipo, who is carry out duties, our government seems to cold-shoulder.

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October 14, 2009
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Brittanicus said:

... Soon America is going to be confronted with another out-of-control AMNESTY for the 20 to 30 million illegal aliens already here. This is not taking into account the millions who will follow on, once the word gets out through Central and South America and the rest of the world. Only the armed National Guard on our lax border will be able to stop the incursion of the destitute, the sick, drug dealers, slavers, foreign terrorists and a multitude other entering this country illegally. The church, unions, the Communist ACLU, US Chamber of Commerce, Council of Foreign Relations and radical, International groups all have their agendas. These Anti-sovereignty organizations must embrace there corrupted puppet politicians, that ostensibly wants to make this cataclysm come true?

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October 14, 2009
Votes: +1